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It was a great year for music with lots of choices to make my list. Oldsters and young bucks offered quality and genre-bending offerings. I saw two legends this year for the first time, Jay Z and Willie Nelson. Both entertainers have a surprising amount of qualities in common. Willie and Hova are prolific and have been over long careers. Both have played with many different artists over the years and usually produced interesting results. Jay and Willie are both fond of their weed. And this year I discovered they both dominate a stage like few artists can. Jay Z was by far the best concert I saw in 2014. If you saw him play with Beyoncé or JT you know he over shadowed both and just owns his audience. Willie Nelson, at 81 years old, did all the vocals and all the guitar work and captivated the crowd at the Mann Music Center. So without further ado the top ten albums of 2014.

Alt-J – “This is All Yours” – I had never heard of this Australian band but they released a dreamy, winding set of songs and took my number one honors. They had a pretty big hit in “Left Hand Free” which sounds nothing like the rest of the album.

Robert Plant – “Lullaby and the Ceaseless Roar” – Give the former Led Zeppelin lead singer credit — he is still experimenting and learning new skills at 66 years old. Plant’s album includes Irish and African influences in a beginning-to-end, consistently good album.

U2 – “Songs of Innocence” – The legendary Irish band gave away their new album on ITunes and everyone complained. I don’t get it, if you don’t want to listen to it then don’t play it. But people raged against the unwanted download if they were not fans. Critics did not show this album much love (except Rolling Stone magazine which has become no longer relevant, sadly). I included it in my playlist for many months. Standard U2 fare but well written songs, and Bono is one of our era’s greatest vocalists.

John Butler Trio – “Flesh and Blood” – These hippie like dudes put out an album early in 2014. Some of the songs became themes for me in a year of transitions. “Living in the City” was the theme for our move, and “Spring to Come” was a hopeful tune after the brutal winter we had last year. We saw them play on the River at Penn’s Landing in a perfect, early summer concert.

Leonard Cohen – “Popular Problems” – A few years ago I listed a Leonard Cohen song in my Year-End Bests, and it became the most visceral choice I have ever made. People listened to the year-end CD and wanted to know, “WTF is up with Leonard?” Not rap stuff or weird releases, but the80 year old Mr. Cohen. Well he’s back with another beautiful set of simple, elegant and thoughtful tunes along with his rough, talking vocals, violin and gorgeous backup singers. Sorry haters, he is good.

War on Drugs – “Lost in the Dream” – One of Philly’s best, War on Drugs put out a great album that was included on most year-end lists. Their dreamy, melodic rock music takes you on a journey.

TV on the Radio – “Seeds” – After a 5 year wait, TV on the Radio came back with a great follow up after their base player, Gerard Smith, passed away soon after their last release. We saw them at Union Transfer this past fall. The album is much more poppy and accessible than their previous stuff.

Ryan Adams- “Ryan Adams” – I am a big Ryan Adams fan so his inclusion may be a bit biased. It is a good album, not a great one. We saw him play the Tower Theater which included only one outburst from this neurotic singer/ songwriter.

Beck – “Morning Phase” – Beck put out a few interesting things this year. “Morning Phase” is very similar to “Sea Change” in that it is a very mellow collection of songs. He also put out a song book last year with which he encouraged anyone to play the written songs. This year a bunch of other artists recorded that music with their own interpretations.

Strand of Oaks – “HEAL” – Timothy Showalter is Strand of Oaks. He is from Indiana but now lives in Philly. This is his third album. The album contains almost autobiographical stories about his own growth from an angry youth (hence the title). And the guitars sound angry as well. J. Macis guests on one track with his ‘shredding guitar’ sound. Timothy looks like a Jesus Christ look alike with his crazy beard.

I usually put this list together on Thanksgiving so as to not be too influenced by major year-end lists. I look at lots of lists, and like to sample things which I may have missed. So on the list of stuff I missed but was pretty good, I would recommend the following: St. Vincent, Sharron van Etton, and Tony Allen (previously played with Fela Kuti). Run the Jewels 2, featuring El-P and Killer Mike, was my favorite rap album. D’Angelo dropped a surprise album the week before Christmas. It was his first since his classic R&B release Voodoo in 2000 and definitely worth checking out.

As far as shows, I mentioned a few so far but two more were memorable because of who I saw the show with! My sister and I celebrated her 50th B day at Citizens Bank to see Billy Joel. And I took one of my favorite nephews to see his first concert, the Black Keys.

It seems like since the beginning of January the Real Estate market turned on a switch and people started getting busy. FINALLY! A three year drought of activity will make any real estate professional long for the ‘old days’. Since most real estate folks I know are certified ADD candidates, the lack of deals has been especially hard to take. Lease proposals, sale prospects, some refinancings, appraisals, and even some tenant improvement construction have cropped up everywhere.

Last week we completed demo work at 35 Cricket Terrace in Adrmore. Fourteen 30 yard dumpsters took years of walls, ceilings, doors away from our 12,000 sf former office suite. Our dumpster guy reported ours was one of four demo jobs going on that week. We should all hope the job market really picks up and maybe we can get back to real estate hyper activity, the drug all of us real estate addicts crave!

On Friday April 8th Villanova University hosted it’s second annual Real Estate Competition. Teams of undergrad students were given a week to analyze and prepare a plan to develop a parcel of ground in New York City. Industry leaders from Keystone Property Group, JLL, CBRE and KPMG were on hand to judge the teams. NYU, Univ of PA, North Carolina, Texas, Penn State, Georgia and USC were some of the participants. UNC was the first place finisher featuring a student named Marcello who seized the moment in an impressive display of knowledge and confidence!

Once again Thanksgiving reminds us that another year will soon be in the books, and I begin to think about my Top 10 albums for the year. Actually I have been thinking about it all year. Since this represents my fourth year of a formal review, I take the responsibility all the more seriously. For 2010 I am adding a slight new wrinkle, I am preparing this list before the national media (not trying to sound like Sarah Palin) publish theirs. This way the list cannot be influenced by other year end reviews. So for the record, this list was complied Thanksgiving weekend and uninfluenced by Paste, Rolling Stone, Inquirer, etc.

The current world seems to carry a fair amount of uncertainty. We just witnessed another political shift. Our economy feels like it wants to move forward View full article »

2009 marked some personal numerical milestones for me; I turned 50, celebrated 20 years of wedded bliss but most frightening my daughter turned 18. How did that happen?

So I am continuing a recent tradition with my yearly music review. As I considered my favorites from the year it became obvious that many bands on the list were acts I had seen live. 5 of my top 10 CD releases were bands I enjoyed perform this year, including one and two which I saw in the same night! If you are a music fan you absolutely must go out and see live music. My year included the SXSW live music overload, Phish for the first time in Jones Beach, NY, and two iconic artists closing the old Spectrum in Philly. I was also fortunate to witness a crazy number View full article »

2008 was certainly a year to remember! We experienced huge shifts in the political, economic, and overall psyche of our country and world. The United States will have its first African American president, the economy shifted into reverse after a long climb up, people lost 30-40% of their net worth over what seemed like a 2-3 month period, and we are still fighting two silly wars. Oil prices spiked to $140 a barrel and back to $40 a gallon in 6 months. Wall Street will never be the same with huge investment banks, insurance companies and auto companies either tanking or needing billions of dollars in bail out money from our government. It was a crazy year in sports starting with the NY Giants Super Bowl win over an undefeated opponent, the incredible Michael Phelps, and our very own Phillies ending a 28 year city championship drought. If we ever needed a positive distraction View full article »